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Alice Walton

Ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft will continue to operate in Los Angeles. The city council failed to get enough votes to file a formal challenge to the Public Utilities Commission's new regulations for the fledgling industry. Uber

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The City of Los Angeles will not challenge the Public Utilities Commission's rules regulating mobile ride-sharing companies after the city council failed to reach the eight vote threshold to pursue the matter.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 7-6 in closed session Wednesday to appeal the commission's 28 rules that essentially allow ride-sharing companies to operate. Voting in favor of the appeal were council members Bob Blumenfield, Gil Cedillo, Paul Koretz, Paul Krekorian, Nury Martinez, Bernard Parks and Curren Price. The council needed eight votes to OK the appeal.

"The taxi industry is afraid these ride-sharing apps will be to them what Amazon was to bookstores," Bonin said.

"That's a possibility. There's also the possibility that these ride-sharing apps could be to the taxi industry what gourmet food trucks are to restaurants: two different types of things that are very similar but [with] different business models that not entirely happily coexist, serving different types of people with different interests."

Previously in Represent!

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